Flip Flop

The Doctor and Mel arrive on the planet Puxatornee not once, but twice at separate intervals some thirty years apart. Both times upon their arrival they discover that they are already wanted persons, either as dissidents undermining the rule of the slug-like uber polite Slithergees, or as Slithergee agents attempting to spy on the human population. In both threads of time, the Doctor and Mel are forced to travel in the TARDIS and assist in altering time for the betterment of the planet's human population, and in both threads the Doctor warns that changing the future can have unforseen consequences...

Flip Flop is actually pretty brilliant storytelling; it is a 4 episode story that has no defined beginning or end and more or less puts the Doctor and Mel into a loop of time as they try to free themselves from the goings on of Puxatornee. As their own understanding of the events around them unfolds they begin to realize that they are now in a race against time themselves to get off the planet before their alternate selves arrive in their own TARDIS.

I really picked the wrong days to try and listen to this audio, though; working nights you really need to have all your brain cells firing when concentration is required and I just kept dropping off and having to go back and listen to sections again. Flip Flop, like many of the other stories inserted into the background of season 24, maintains some elements of the televised episodes of the time; there's no real feel of a threat to the Doctor and Mel and the villains of the piece are hardly scary at all. The Slithergees are a bit of an absurdity, humbly requesting sanctuary on one of Puxatornee's moons and then gradually insinuating themselves into the power roles of the colony's government through political correctness. And the hint of nuclear war. And when the humans are in power and struggling to deal with the fallout of exactly that war, they are desperate and ugly, convinced that going back in time to stop the war is what they need to do, even though it may well land them under Slithergee control again.

This is actually the sort of thing I could see the new televised series trying to achieve; it's a clever premise, it's handled well and even if the Doctor seems to be a bit too calm throughout the show, he is still very much on form where his defence of the web of time is concerned. Mel is as always Mel, with more clever dialogue and still no screaming. I'm actually going to miss her. Or this new version of her.



NEXT EPISODE : RED

The Fires of Vulcan

An archaeological expedition recovers the TARDIS from the ruins of Pompeii in present day Earth. UNIT investigators are called in to identify the object. Hundreds of years in the past, the Doctor and Melanie visit the city during its final days. The Doctor knows well enough about the discovery in the future; it's something he has been trying to avoid for the longest time but now he has arrived at what he believes will be his last adventure. Melanie refuses to accept the Doctor's defeatist attitude and strikes out on her own to try and change the future, but as events progress and the travellers become more enmeshed in the past, it looks as if they will not escape the eruption of Vesuvius and will indeed die with Pompeii.

Here's an interesting twist on the whole "changing the past" thing. The Doctor knows he can't do it. He's told his companions often enough that they cannot do it, and on occasion has warned them that if they become part of history he will not be able to protect them from it. What happens, though, when he realizes that his own number might be up? Do the rules change for a Time Lord, or does he accept his fate and just wait for the end? After all he has the power to change it. And then there's Melanie to consider as well; does he doom her along with himself or does he try to at least save her life?

Fate and destiny. There's that old argument again that was thrust upon my OAC English class when we were reading Hamlet. Do we have power to change things? Or is it true what Jaye says in an episode of the inspired yet short-lived Wonderfalls, "We're all fate's bitch. Bend over for destiny,"

Against this struggle with the inevitible also comes the story of the Doctor and Melanie's visit to Pompeii. Their own fate is in question, but what about the people who live there? True to fashion they meet people and become involved in their lives, people who see the smouldering volcano next door as a chimney for Vulcan's furnaces where he works at his forge. They don't know what's coming, and history forbids the Doctor and Mel from saying anything, even if it means their own lives are at risk. Classic Doctor dilemma. In the face of this disaster, though, one wonders why he doesn't just leave and escape fate, absolve himself of the guilt of not being able to save anyone else this time. He thinks it's futile, that somehow he will just end up back here, and the TARDIS will be found later as it always has been. Sylvester McCoy goes a bit darker in this one, broody and moody, which I'm not a big fan of. He can't do defeated without sounding ... well... melodramatic.

The new series of Doctor Who due to start in April sees the tenth Doctor and his companion Donna in Pompeii as well; I'm not sure if they are there for the eruption but it's a pretty safe bet that they are. Why else would they go there? So will their adventure negate this one, will it overwrite and ignore The Fires of Vulcan? Or will it be adapted from this one, throwing continuity out the window and recycling key plot elements once more as was the case with Jubilee ? We'll find that out in April or May 2008.

Meanwhile...

NEXT EPISODE : FLIP-FLOP

Delta and the Bannermen

Delta, the Queen of the Chimerons and the last of her people, is on the run. Her planet has been invaded by Gavrok and his mercenary army of Bannermen, her people slaughtered. Custodian of the future of her species, Delta disguises herself as a tourist amongst the Navarino party going to Disneyland on Earth in 1959 on a Nostalgia Trips Bus. The Doctor and Melanie are also along for the ride, having won their places on the trip as the 10,000,000,000th customers at a galactic toll port, but a freak accident lands the tour group at a holiday camp in Wales. The Bannermen raiding party is not far behind, bringing danger to an otherwise dull part of the world.

See how well a premise can start up and then just go right into the crapper? If you dig sci fi farce along the lines of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, then the trend of absurdities on season 24 would be sort of up your alley, if, indeed, it was on par. Sadly it's not.

Now Delta not without its relative strengths; it's actually quite innovative and shot almost entirely on location (the exceptions being a brief scene inside the TARDIS and a few other simple sets) in a pleasant setting. It also has the first vocal incidental music score since The Gunfighters back in 1966, along with some re-imagined classic rock and roll tracks and similar inspired music. And the props people got the whole thing pretty good, kitting the cast out in retro 50's attire. But period looks have never been a problem for any arm of the BBC.

Where this one suffers, is, as I have said before, the realization of an alien tour group coming to earth in disguise. Clever, yes. Well executed? No. It just feels too... happy. And not engaging enough. I remember watching it for the first time back in 1987 and enjoying it because it was new, but then thinking I would never actually show this episode to someone as as elling point for the series. I did, however, show it to Jay yesterday and we did what we usually do and discussed the merits of the show (usually when we see a hot guy, and in this case we agree that young mechanic Billy is the eye candy of the piece) and a few of the detracting elements like mis-placed moments of musical score, the odd camera angle that did not make sense, and obvious gaffes like Sylvester McCoy clearly seen wearing his glasses as he drives a motorbike across a field. And even some downright funny bits where Gavrok kicks Mel to the ground.

For a 3 episode story, Delta has a pretty big cast, and some of them being very big names in British television. So I am told, anyways. Ken Dodd as the toll collector. Don Henderson as Gavrok. American actor Stubby Kaye as a bumbling American intelligence agent. And then there's this absolute gem of a character, the sensitive and lovely Ray, played by Sara Griffiths. I remember being really annoyed at the end of the show when Ray did not leave in the TARDIS with Mel and the Doctor; she would have been a great addition to the series as a period character. But no.

The show concludes on a happy note, with "Happy Days Are Here Again" playing as the TARDIS dematerializes (and the mysterious old Goronwy character winking leaving us to wonder just who this guy is - a Time Lord? The White Guardian? Just a really nice old guy who has strangers into his home for a cup of tea and a chat?). Happy days were not next, though, as the next episode in the televised series would be a bit more grim. But Big Finish have thrown a few new tales into the mix as well, with a few nasties out there for the Doctor and Melanie to face...

NEXT EPISODE : THE FIRES OF VULCAN

Bang Bang A Boom!

The Doctor and Mel arrive on Dark Space 8, a once famous and bustling space station now a semi-forgotten corner of the galaxy. In a case of mistaken identity, the Doctor assumes the guise of the station's new Commander just as the Galactic Song Contest is about to begin on board. The contestants are from all over the galaxy, including worlds who are currently attending a peace conference on another station. But the politics of the peace conference are alive and well at the competition, and someone is going to become a murderer.

Another comedy. You can tell from the get go as the chief medical officer makes a melodramatic log entry with orchestral fanfare in the background. The obvious satirical target here is Star Trek : Deep Space Nine but it feels more like Babylon 5 as we get to know more of the characters and their political relations with each other. The Doctor steps in easily to cover for the real commander, who was murdered in his shuttle, and Melanie takes the guise of his pilot. The characters come fast and furious, most notable being Angvia, the psuedo-Viking songstress with designs on the Doctor ("The universe can vait! I am a voman!") and flash-in-the-pan Earth pop sensation Nicky Newman who seeks solace with Mel because she is nonplussed at his stardom. Throw in a gaseous gestalt entity and a nervous gerbil-like Pakhar, along with the station's floundering medical officer ("I feel so.. helpless,") and there's the main players in the drama.

Although season 24 was on the whole played for a lot of laughs and without very heavy undertones, Big Finish's audios of the time seem to raise the bar on the humour a bit through more clever writing than what we were actually given in 1987. Not that the season was totally totally wrong, but there was a lot of room for improvement in production and even in the regular cast's performances (which get better with each Big Finish, as though they were reinventing their characters). I find myself liking McCoy's amiable chap seventh Doctor a lot more than some of his moodier and brooding sides that are to come when presented this way. He does quite well opposite Patricia Quinn (Magenta from Rocky Horror Picture Show) in their scenes together, and they're a marked contrast (style-wise) from when they worked together in the 1987 season finale, Dragonfire. It's always fun when someone famous is part of the show, isn't it?

I don't really have much else to say. It was fun. It was not the best but it never tried to be. As soon as you get anything written by Gareth Roberts it's a given it's not going to be the most serious script ever penned, but it will be interesting.

NEXT EPISODE : DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN

Paradise Towers

The Doctor and Mel head for Paradise Towers, a massive apartment block known for its architectural vision and flawless design. When the TARDIS arrives, though, the complex has deteriorated into a slum under seige from within. The residents prey upon each other, all-girl street gangs roam the corridors and deface the walls with graffitti, the caretakers have formed a totalitarian regime, and the automated cleaning machines have embarked on a killing rampage.

On a lot of levels Paradise Towers is sheer brilliance. Hay sat in on this episode with me and we both remarked that the direction was markedly different from other Doctor Who episodes, resulting in very effective use of the episode's large two-storey main set. As with any of the series' classic adventures, there's always a consciousness about money and there's only so much that can be done, but the gloomy hallways of the Towers are made very astmospheric though use of clever lighting and rearranging. If you look close enough you start to spot the same bits of graffiti here and there, but usually there's too much actually going on across the screen to stop and do that.

There's no real indicators if the Towers are in space somewhere or on a planet. Nobody goes outside, it's very claustrophobic. The sky outside does appear to be blue. The population is made up of a group of weary and mean caretakers whose spirits have been broken by their regimented lifestyles. They're supposed to be looking after the place, but their automated cleaning machines are taking matters into their own hands. Uh, claws. The Doctor realizes this right away when he is their prisoner, but they take a turn for the worst and start planning his execution. The residents of the Towers are made up of primarily old people, mostly old ladies. We get to meet them through Melanie when she is separated from the Doctor, and their first instinct is to start feeding her (and she needs it - but damn there goes her health consciousness right out the window pretty quick) so they can fatten her up and eat her. Melanie then falls in with a muscleguy named Pex (another extra right from the JN-T casting couch, Jay and I reckon) who is here on some agenda on his own - which turns out to be dodging the draft. And the final little group are the Kangs - teenage girls gone wild and playing a game of tag in the corridors and broken up into three separate colour camps: red, blue and yellow. Oh, primary colours, I just got that now. The last yellow Kang is no more by the time the Doctor and Mel arrive, and the Doctor spends most of his time with the red Kangs and their leaders Fire Escape and Bin Liner (yes, names are everything).

Jay and I weren't sure if there was some kind of message in the subtext of the show. Is this some critique of subsidized housing? An examination of the stupidity of trying to work while governed by a rule book? (Take that CUPW!) Is it a comment on how society breaks down and tribal warfare begins when people are forced to exist together in small spaces with depleting resources? Sure people are dying, the residents are turning into cannibals and something really nasty is lurking in the basement screaming that it is hungry, but that's all pretty simple stuff isn't it?

It's good to keep in mind that this is the second proper televised adventure with the seventh Doctor and Melanie, and it feels as if a bit of time has gone by. There's some friendly teasing between the two of them now, and the Doctor is starting to come into his own. He's started to carry an umbrella around with him now, and his tendancy to muddle up proverbial sayings that was so painfully established in Time and the Rani has been thankfully dropped. Problem is, since they're getting along so well and everything is cheerful, their relationship is a bit boring. There's no sexual chemistry between them (not that there ever was between any of the Doctors and companions until recent times) so we're left with two friends on their merry way through the galaxy in a police box. It's simplistic, I suppose, but neither of them has much going on beneath the surface here.

And then there's the screaming. Melanie. Screaming. Screaming. Melanie. My ears.

The incidental music is pretty good, some of it done as to keep in pace with the actions of the characters on the screen, whether they be walking, flinching from something that happens in front of them, or even turning their head slightly. Paradise Towers only really suffers because of the dialogue. The potential for this to be more gripping is all around. Maybe it also needs more blood. It might even need some swearing. But it could be really really scary right up until we find out what's really down in the basement of the building. Oh and the robotic cleaner in the pool could have drowned Melanie. Or Pex. Or, as Jay and I would have appreciated, Pex could have taken off his shirt (although some of those muscles are padding we suspect).

When this one comes out on DVD I'm going to be right there to get it from the UK. I do not know when this is going to be, though. But as I have said before, my region-free DVD player downgrades the image a bit and turns tacky bright sharp cheap video image into something a little more like film quality; it adds entirely new levels to the way some of the all-video episodes look, and I think Towers could look quite good that way.

I'll let you know.

NEXT EPISODE : BANG BANG A BOOM!

The Rani Reaps The Whirlwind

After her failed experiment on Lakertya, the Rani is taken prisoner by her own Tetrap servants and put to work. The project she in charged with is a simple one: create a perpetual food source for the Tetraps. And that food is blood. The Rani is not alone: she finds herself with other prisoners of the Tetraps and forges a shaky alliance with them to escape, but is it going to be that simple? And does the Rani have a shred of concern for her fellow captives?

The premise sounds interesting, doesn't it? Pity the finished project isn't all it could have been. This is by no means a Big Finish calibre production; the actors do not sound very convinced of their roles (aside from Kate O'Mara as the Rani, 13 years after Time and the Rani was broadcast) and the incidental music... well it didn't even sound like bad porno music, it just sounded bad. And the cues were all a bit pointless. Still, it's interesting to see that Urak, the Rani's henchamn Tetrap, has quickly ascended the ranks and is the leader of the species now. Bagging a Time Lord and bringing back a TARDIS must have pushed him up a few notches.

The script for Whirlwind was written by Pip and Jane Baker, and for some reason they decided it was important to have the Tetraps randomly abduct a jock who is high on himself, a friend of his who is high on E, and a girl on her high horse about still being a virgin. Why? Just so they could bring illicit drug use that much closer to Doctor Who? Or just so they could include the word "hymen" in the script? NOBODY says "hymen" when they are trying to get into a girl's pants. Good god.

I think we could have lived without this one. Nice try and all, but was this a story that had to be told? The answer here is no. Thankfully it was just an hour long and in the end the Rani shows a slight bit of compassion for her fellow captors, then off she goes swearing revenge on Urak and his people. And they still haven't gotten around to telling that one.

And hopefully they won't.

NEXT EPISODE : PARADISE TOWERS

Unregenerate!

The Doctor's been locked up in an asylum, the walls of which echo with the screams and cries of the other patients around him. The TARDIS returns to Earth without him, and Melanie realizes that her friend is in trouble but beyond her reach. Meanwhile, the powers in charge of the asylum are making deals with people on Earth to collect them the day before they die and siphon off their memories to preserve them - but towards what ultimate end?

I have to admit, this one went a totally different direction from where I thought it was headed. Melanie has to survive without the Doctor for over half of the story, and when she does find him there's not much left of his mind to engage. The staff of the institute are aware that he is a Time Lord, and that he has recently regenerated, and at times it feels as if the persona that is the seventh Doctor is being wiped out and the sixth (or someone else) is trying to emerge. There' a certain amount of disharmony amongst the staff as well; Klyst (played by Jennie Lyndon - her first role in Doctor Who was on the big screen with Peter Cushing as the Doctor) is starting to feel a certain amount of responsibility for the people they are inadvertantly harming with their work, Louis shows compassion for them as soon as he recruits them but abandons it when they are collected, and Rigan just wants everyone to follow orders, and heaven help whoever disobeys. Add the latest human recruit, Johannes, to the mix and a strange alien named Shokhra in the next cel, and the place is brimming with well defined characters. And let's not overlook Mel's defacto companion for the episode, the Cabbie; he adjusts to the situation quickly and forms a protective interest in her, but not quite a romantic one.

And let me say: when the truth about what's going on in the institute came out, I was really surprised.

If this actually was the second adventure with the seventh Doctor, it's debatable if it would have flown on television. For starters the effects of the show might have been too much; the institute is linked to a facility in space on an asteroid (shades of the tenth Doctor's predicament in 2007's Smith and Jones). But there's the sudden absence of the seventh Doctor; with the audience still in a bit of shock after the regeneration it wouldn't be too wise to remove the character and drive him nuts. Still, this is all retcon and the rules are different.

The joy of retcon is anyone can get in on it. Big Finish does it for as many aspects of Doctor Who as they can (including Sarah Jane Smith, the Daleks, Cybermen, UNIT and Professor Bernice Summerfield), Magic Bullet got a piece with the Kaldor City adventures, and BBV are in on it as well, going beyond the bounds here and there, including their own sequel to the seventh Doctor's debut story...

NEXT EPISODE : THE RANI REAPS THE WHIRLWIND

Time and the Rani

The TARDIS is shot down over the planet Lakertya and crash lands. Mel is left inside for dead but the Doctor is dragged out by the Rani and one of her Tetrap henchmen. The Doctor regenerates while unconscious, the sixth Doctor's larger features giving way to a smaller successor, and leaves the Doctor at the mercy of the Rani. While Mel is rescued by one of the native Lakertyans, Ikona, and learns of the Rani's suppression of the planet for her experiments, the Doctor is duped into helping her through trickery, but the Rani requires him further as a componant of an experiment that will give her control over time.

So that's it. Sixth Doctor gone. The regeneration happens right before the titles roll - the first time Doctor Who has ever started this way - and then we're hit with a new opening sequence (the starfield sequence that started with Tom Baker's face back in The Leisure Hive finally replaced) and a new arrangement of the theme song (which sounds like it's being played through a kazoo). And the regeneration itself is done in a very clever way; so clever, in fact, you might even think that Colin Baker was there for it, but he wasn't. Nope. Sylvester McCoy in a wig, concealed by special effects. The story was actually written with regeneration in mind, but it was hoped that Colin Baker would return for one last story and be killed off in the end, which he rightfully refused to do (there's even commentary about this back in the novel Synethspiens - gotta love retcon!) When the new seventh Doctor does make his actual entrance/recovery a few minutes later, he's still confused by his regeneration, although not on the edge of death/lunacy as has been the case in previous tales. The new Doctor has a faint Scottish burr to his voice, and he seems to be picking up on the second Doctor's tendancy to clown around and be goofy.

Jay was back in on it with me for this one, which was nice since honestly, there's not much joy in watching this one alone. The series was in terrible trouble at this point in its history; seen as a joke within the BBC itself and the ratings sagging all around despite Bonnie Langford brought in midway through the previous season to make it a more family-oriented show. The solution in the minds of the BBC brass was to facelift the whole thing, and Colin Baker had to go. The script was still written with him in mind, and it still sounds like him in places, which makes for an interesting bit of regeneration theory; the last vestiges of his previous self still there, not ready to go yet.

I don't really know why this one feels so forced and so bad. All the elements are there. New look. Kate O'Mara as the Rani playing it up impersonating Bonnie Langford's Melanie. More guest stars including Mark Greenstreet (a real hottie although his costume totally eliminates any of his attributes) Wanda Ventham, and Donald Pickering (both appeared in The Faceless Ones back in 1967). New monsters in the form of the bat-like Tetraps. Pretty cool special effects.

But then there's the script by Pip and Jane Baker. Some of ther performances are less than their best. The direction needed help. And then there was the screaming.... oh the SCREAMING. There's a moment where Melanie just stands there and screams. Doesn't run. Doesn't fight. SCREAMS. And when she is finally saved she doesn't exactly make haste to run away from what's scaring her so much. And why does the Doctor go through every costume worn by his previous selves before arriving at his own new look - that questionable question mark vest.

I think Jay and I agreed with the Rani at the start of episode 1 where she says "This is idiotic!". Yeah she's supoosed to be speaking to the Doctor but maybe she's gotten a look at the script a few pages ahead.

Now that I've had some extra time to enjoy the sixth Doctor, though, I find myself more resentful than usual towards this episode. I really feel cheated as a fan. At least with Spiral Scratch we got some set-up as to why the Doctor was regenerating in the first place; he can take a lot of abuse but if the Rani's attack on the TARDIS was enough to trigger a regeneration, it should have absolutely killed Mel. And if it has been me and the TARDIS was crashing in my script, I'd have the inside of the sucker in flames for a change, bash it up a bit.

In the end, the new Doctor promises Mel "Oh I'll grown on you,", which sounds like more of producer John Nathan-Turner's indirect commentary to the fans, much akin to "I am the Doctor, whether you like it or not!" back at the end of The Twin Dilemma, which feels like a lifetime ago now.

The combination of the seventh Doctor and Melanie went on to be one of the less-favoured duos of the series, but thankfully Big Finish have worked their magic on this era as well as the previous season to bring out some new adventures for them and give them a bit more to do, some more intelligent dialogue in keeping with the audience's expectations.

Let's see.

NEXT EPISODE : UNREGENERATE!

Spiral Scratch

A visit to the Doctor's friend Professor Rummas on his library-world, Carsus, brings the Doctor and Melanie face to face with the grim image of Rummas' murder - and the Doctor's. Somehow the time lines have become damaged, and various Doctors and Melanies from different universes are crossing paths on the same mission: to solve the mystery of the Lamprey family before reality unravells all around them.

I hate multiple universe stories. Hate em hate em hate em. That is, if they're not done right. That old "alternate universe" clause gets bandied around far too much in science fiction for my liking, and although the Doctor only legitimately goes to such places twice in the televised series (maybe three times, we're still not sold on the events of Battlefield taking place anywhere but on this Earth), the phrase comes up to dismiss continuity errors and sloppy research by writers.

So Gary Russell wants to write about the multiverse. And you know what, he does okay. His plot threads never get away from him, the ideas are not too challenging to follow, and despite the fact that events are whipsawing all across time and space - indeed, some events are revistied several times from the perspective of different Doctors - it never gets confusing to the extent that the reader wants to throw the book away in disgust.

When I say multiple Doctors, though, we're not talking the whole set of six showing up, but different universe versions of the same - the sixth - Doctor. Essentially they're all the same, the most different one being the one all dressed in black with a horrid scar down his face, but he's not akin to the Valeyard, he's just the Doctor in black. And the same can be said of the different versions of Melanie, including a version of her from Earth where Rome's empire never fell, and a hybrid human-Silurian Mel. All different, and all the same. There are even glimpses of Peri, Evelyn, and Frobisher at times. No Grant, though.

Do I buy into the Lampreys being a real monster threat? Sort of. From how they are described I am more reminded of the Fendahleen than anything, but I have just looked up a picture of a lamprey on wikipedia and I am reminded of how creepy those things really are. Okay, I buy it. They're bad. And intelligent as well as ugly.

Remember back when I was doing Synthespiens and I said how I loathed writers who decided they would write THE last story before a pivotal event in the series' history? This is one of those books. This is meant to be THE final adventure for the sixth Doctor. And this time I do not mind. Owing to certain foolish decisions at the BBC back in 1986 we were cheated out of a final story for the sixth Doctor; there was no closure, no noble end, nothing. Just a cop-out. The last time we saw the Doctor in this incarnation on our screens was when he and Melanie left the Time Lord space station after the Doctor's trial was finished. The sixth Doctor never got fleshed out properly; we never really got to know him until years later when writers were allowed to go back and give him more adventures and new companions. Doctor Who is not one of those series where the phrase "too little too late" applies; I'll admit that I was never keen on the sixth Doctor before simply because I never got to see enough of him, and what I did see I did not enjoy. Well, my opinion changed over the years, and now that I have come to the end of his run (at least for now) I can say that I will miss him. Thanks to the efforts of the writers for BBC Books, Virgin Books and Big Finish, this Doctor has been allowed to ascend to a more noble stature than he was previously granted, which makes his departure from the televised series all the more irritating and sad.

NEXT EPISODE : TIME AND THE RANI

The Wishing Beast and The Vanity Box

A mysterious signal brings the TARDIS to a secluded region of space where the Doctor and Mel meet a pair of old ladies living in a small cottage. The ladies are sisters, one half mad, and they both greet Mel as a heroic traveller in space and time, promising her a meeting with the Wishing Beast, who will grant her her greatest desire. The Doctor is rightfully suspicious and discovers a presence on the world is trying to make contact but is being stifled from breaking through. The warning that is sent out is dire, but surely two harmless old ladies can't be the cause of such dismay?



Oh yes they can. Both posessed by powers that cannot be fully grasped, they lure travellers to their domain and treat them like heroes, only to feed them to the Wishing Beast and leave them as non-corporeal entities. But the agony of the lost souls never ends there, as the essence of the travellers is peeled away layer by layer by the Beast as it returns to feed on them time and again.

Creepy. Old people always get a bum deal in sci fi; they're almost always posessed by some evil force, or they're older than old and seething with evil power. Or they're just plain evil. Sure there's the odd one who is a benevolant type, but the baddies far outnumber them, especially when it's a pair of old ladies living on their own (there's more of that to come in Paradise Towers). Is it cliche? Not exactly. Sucking up the remaining essence of the disembodied with a vacuum... that might be. And then there's the true nature of the Beast itself; there's enough hints dropped about who it could be across the whole story that the blind and the deaf could see and hear it coming.

The Wishing Beast is played out across three episodes, leaving one single episode as another one-off adventure, The Vanity Box.

Box picks up right where Beast ends, with the Doctor and Mel arriving in the swinging 60s looking for somewhere fabulous and finding miracle time restoring makeover magic in the backstreets of London. Or somewhere in England. Maybe it was Manchester. But there's a new salon in town, with a new man running things, and people are coming out of it with years knocked off them.

Unlike the previous 3-part and 1-part combo, I.D. and Urgent Calls, both stories here are linked together not just by mere reference but by actual progression of events, with the very French sounding Mr Coiffure (there's a shock) the salon owner unwittingly acting as the agent of an alien entity. The Doctor mixes with the locals who sound like classic 1960s characters from Coronation Street, and then for the third time in the series he does drag.

At this point, Big Finish have not produced any further adventures for the sixth Doctor and Melanie Bush, and as an interesting end to the episode, Melanie makes a wish that her travels with the Doctor could continue on indefinitely. Whether this was intentional or not remains to be seen, but once more there is this feeling that Big Finish are quietly tidying up their own continuity as if they're moving on. I've still not heard if their license is being renewed for these adventures or not, but in time we shall see.

NEXT EPISODE : SPIRAL SCRATCH

Thicker Than Water

On a whim, the Doctor decides to take Mel to visit his old friend and former companion, Evelyn Smythe. Happily married to her old flame Justice Rossiter, Evelyn is now an influential figure in the political theatre on the planet Vilag during its reconstruction after the Killoran invasion. Protests to destroy all machinery and devices left from the war are now the hot topic, the loudest voice being Evelyn's new stepdaughter, Sophia. The day the Doctor and Mel arrive violence breaks out, and Vilag is once more on the brink of destruction, this time from within, with Evelyn caught in the middle.

Evelyn, as you may have noticed by now, never had a farewell scene or story. Clever Big Finish; they've given her a happy ending of sorts here with her new life with Rossiter, complete with a flashback to when she actually did leave the Doctor. Her departure hurts him, you can tell by the tone his voice takes when she says she is going to stay with Rossiter, but by an interesting switch of circumstance when the Doctor and Mel come face to face with Evelyn there's an awkward pause and even a slight bit of tension between the two companions. Why Evelyn should feel anything about the Doctor having a new companion travelling with him is hard to say, considering she did leave him. If anyone should be upset, it should be the Doctor at having been so casually discarded.

Political situations on Vilag have not gotten any better after the invasion; all three nations are now united as one but the internal strife over what to do with the Killoran remnants is causing friction on all levels. And somewhere in there, someone has their own agenda just to suit themself. Where the temptation would be to have a second invasion attempt seeing as this is a sequel, thankfully it is not the case; the struggle of the world to put itself back together and carry on is far more interesting, especially with an old "friend" like Evelyn enmeshed in it.

I liked this one. A lot. I liked it a lot better than a novel called Instruments of Darkness, a BBC novel by Gary Russell which also features the first meeting between Evelyn and Mel, but under very different circumstances. All I really enjoyed about Instruments was the Doctor's rant early in the adventure when chided by Mel to return a "borrowed" Volkswagen beetle (the writers trying so hard to be trendy back then - the eighth Doctor actually had one as a sad replacement attempt for Bessie); he insists that Grant would let him keep the car (the last time we hear that name to date) and then muses that Evelyn would as well, and would make him a chocolate cake while she was at it.

What else did I like? The story just felt more real, and the whole feel of Vilag was recreated through the characters who survived the invasion, and the mention of those who were not so fortunate like the lovestruck couple the Doctor and Evelyn befriended on their first adventure there. It's also got a bit of a harder edge to it with the abduction of Evelyn and Mel, and Mel getting smacked around a bit (and you might not think she deserves it, as she is being better written in audio than she was on television, but just wait... you won't like her after a few season 24 episodes), and the terrible truth of what's going on behind the scenes on Vilag. And to close off the whole Evelyn storyline, she receives a surprise visit by the seventh Doctor with some news from her past and his future to share. Clever, though; with no definitive final Evelyn story, Big Finish can go back and pair her with the sixth Doctor as long as they continue producing episodes on CD.

So there's not much more time left for the sixth Doctor and Melanie. Change is coming. Just a few more adventures.

NEXT EPISODES : THE WISHING BEAST and THE VANITY BOX

Catch - 1782

A simple visit to Mel's uncle John goes awry when Melanie is flung backwards in time to 1781. Her coming into contact with a prototype metal causes the TARDIS telepathic circuits to react, but once the Doctor finds her in 1782 events have already moved ahead at an alarming pace. The amnesiac Mel has been kept in a locked room and watched over by her ancestor Henry Hallum, and now he is determined to keep her under his care, even going so far as to marry her and trap her in her own family's past.

I already said simple, didn't I? It is just that. No aliens, no invasions, no end of the world dilemmas, just a back in time story. The whole bit about Melanie getting caught up in her own past starts to get a little too Day of the Daleks for me though; this debate about just that concept has been a lively one between myself and my friend Greg for the last few weeks, and I am still not convinced that people altering their own pasts can escape the paradox they find themselves in. But it's all down to point of view, apparantly.

Note the difference in Mel's reaction to being stranded in this adventure, as opposed to her previous marooned status in The Juggernauts. The effect of travelling through time without the protection of the TARDIS leaves her confused and frightened and without most of her memory, but she retains enough of it to know that without the Doctor coming to get her, she is stuck. She later laments about wasting six months of her life in 1782, which is odd since she lost three months on Lethe waiting for the Doctor to show up there and wasn't too bothered. Maybe the love interest of Geoff on Lethe was enough to keep her optimistic. That or Davros was a nicer man than Hallum.

Hallum's not exactly a bad man; when Mel is found in his home it is mere months after his own wife, Jane, has passed (the ancestor where Mel gets her middle name, it would seem) and he feels duty bound to protect her and see her back to health as he was powerless to help his own wife get better. But we all know how rebounds work, so when the Doctor shows up with uncle John in tow, Hallum is far from pleased. His housekeeper, Mrs McGregor, would be pleased to see Mel leave, though as she has her widowed eyes set on the master of the house herself.

So back into space and time for the Doctor and Melanie. And now they've visited Melanie's family, why not drop in on an old friend of the Doctor's next?

NEXT EPISODE : THICKER THAN WATER

The Juggernauts

Separated during an attack on a deep space cruiser, Melanie and the Doctor eventually find themselves on the colony world Lethe. Melanie's escape pod brings her into the company of Professor Vaso, himself a crash survivor, and some three months later the Doctor arrives - on a mission from the Daleks. Vaso is in fact Davros, escaped from his Dalek captors and now attempting to carve himself a new niche to continue his experiments, but the Daleks see his newest project as a threat to them: a breed of machines called the Juggernauts, but the Doctor knows them as the Mechanoids...

Is it just me or is this concept of Davros trying to get into big business starting to wear a bit thin? It was great in Revelation of the Daleks when he was bleeding Kara's factories dry on Necros, and then the Big Finish audio Davros took the whole concept even farther (even if it was meant to take place earlier) but now... I can't help but feel it's been done enough. Davros is indeed a cutthroat individual, having sold out everyone in his past to get what he wanted, even the entire Kaled race (Nyder would have gotten his eventually if you ask me), but he's never going to be perfect in a three piece business suit. Exterminating the shareholders as a means to succeed seems a bit heavy-handed even for him, more an act of desperation than a well thought out move.

The real shocker in this whole adventure is Melanie. Well, once you get past the Doctor co-operating with the Daleks. Mel has a lot more guts here than ever before, even going so far as to (gasp!) kiss a boy! Yes, Mel in involved in an office romance. And why not - she's been marooned for three months with no sign of the Doctor but makes sure that it's known she'll be off with him again the minute he shows up. And when he does there's no recrimination, no rebuke, just relief to see him again and joy at the idea of resuming their travels together. I can almost liken it to Zoe's relationship with her boss in The Indestructible Man - the computer geek finding happiness.

They said The Juggernauts was a gritty tale, and to an extent it is, but it's not as extreme as it could have been. Davros' improvements to the Mechanoids are of course gross and scary but nothing he hasn't done before. His intent is to create an army of perfect Dalek-killing machines and purge the universe of his creations to start from scratch, but are these oversized tennis balls really the instrument of their destruction? I'm not sure how many people really bought into that scheme back in 1965 when the Daleks ran into the Mechanoids in the final episodes of The Chase, but there was enough of a battle sequence to make people ignore their disbelief and enjoy the carnage. There's a good old fashioned clash in here again but it's just noise, really. Shoot. Dalek scream. Mechanoid jibberish. Boom. More shooting. Repeat.

I have had this CD in my collection for two years, waiting for the blog to roll around this far to enjoy it. Maybe there was too much pressure on it from me to be something it's clearly not, which is to say a good Dalek story. It's more the continuing saga of Davros where the Daleks play a less and less significant part. In episode four Davros says that after centuries have gone by he can no longer be held responsible for the Daleks, and I am starting to agree. Once upon a time as far as the televised episodes went there was no having one without the other, but after a while it's good to have them part ways. The news that Davros is returning to the new series next year to face tenth Doctor David Tennant (and companions galore in a season finale/series pause to end all) is interesting, and I am wondering what the angle is going to be. Still a Dalek master, or is he working on other things now?

Let Davros go. Let him and the Daleks part ways; stop throwing them back together when the result is always going to be the same.

NEXT EPISODE : CATCH-1782

The One Doctor

At the vulgar end of time, the Doctor and Mel come to the planet Generios to answer a distress call. When they arrive, though, they discover a pair of cons masquerading as the Doctor and companion, after having saved the planet from a staged invasion. But when a real threat arrives and demands the three great treasures of the Generios system, the cons crumble and become unwilling companions to the genuine articles as they scour the system for the treasures. Hilarity ensues.

Yes, it's a comedy.

Okay so it's not a bad comedy. It's pretty funny actually, played totally for laughs and giving Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford some great material together as the Doctor and Mel. Their relationship carries on much as it did on screen back in The Trial of a Time Lord, perhaps a bit less saccharine laced; and they really sound like they are enjoying working together on CD despite their very short on-screen acquaintance. Bonnie Langford seems to have relaxed in the role, as if there's no pressure on her to save the show now with her star power. And.... she doesn't scream! She threatens to at one point, but thankfully it never happens.

Since it's not to be taken seriously it's hard not to enjoy Melanie's struggle to assemble the Shelves of Infinity (which anyone who has ever grappled with an IKEA Billy system will appreciate), or the Doctor's arrival in a Weakest Link inspired game show where the contestants have to stump a supercomputer under the watchful eye of an Anne Robinson-esque hostess. The imposters, Banto Zane and Sally Anne, split off and accompany Mel and the Doctor respectively on their tasks once they realize the truth of matters; as far as they were concerned the Doctor was just the stuff of legend, and they never expected the real thing to come along.

The One Doctor fits in snugly with the established tone of the televised series at the end of The Trial of a Time Lord, even if it is a bit more clever than some moments in Terror of the Vervoids and almost all the scripts in the show's 24th season, but it's that same bubbly hey-we're-just-kidding tone that started driving people away. Thankfully this trend is coming to a screeching halt (at least I've heard it is) with the next story...

NEXT EPISODE : THE JUGGERNAUTS

Millennial Rites

It's 1999 and the Doctor and Melanie are in London in time for the festivities of New Years Eve. Melanie looks up some old friends while the Doctor gets in touch with some people from his own past, and both paths lead to the same place: a plan to run a computer program that will over-write reality and allow a brooding sentience a foothold into the world.

Again, another novel I read a long time ago when it first came out in 1995, and I mention it here as more of a continuity piece than a stellar piece of plot and writing. Rites was the first story in the series to take place on New Years Eve between 1999 and 2000, playing on the growing concerns the media had for the future of the world when all the computers hit 01/01/00 (and obviously nothing happened), and since that time Millennium Shock and the first TV movie on FOX also have been set on the same evening - and none of their events coincide despite the fact that two tales take place in the same city. Ah continuity. How can this series have none when it counts? That aside though, Rites fits into the tapestry of what was, at the time, a loose arc of future-current history in the series' fledgling new adventures range as published by Virgin press, and draws on previous tales to bring characters together in its narrative. Anne Travers, menaced by the Yeti in The Web of Fear is now a Dame, and after the events at New World University in Downtime is petrified if another incursion by the Great Intelligence. Her parinoia is joined by that of Ashely Chapel, now a millionaire but in the past an associate of Tobias Vaughan during his bid to sell out Earth to the Cybermen. They have the best of intentions, as the Doctor cannot always be there to save them, but despite his warnings their plan unleashes an even worse fate where his own dark nature begins to seep through in the form of the Valeyard.

To me, Rites is more of a piece of the puzzle than it is a stellar bit of writing on its own. I don't remember buying into the alternate-world scenario very much while I was reading it, where Melanie is transformed into Melaphyre and is an authority figure. Even with that freaky Bride of Frankenstein hairdo on the cover, I don't really think Mel was ever leadership material. Still, once it's all back to normal things slot back into place; Mel and the Doctor heading back to parts unknown but the Doctor's fate already known to the readers (this was at the time the only novel written to fill the gap between Trial of a Time Lord and Time and the Rani, but now there is substantially more material in various media to extend their time together).

I promise I'll read it again more thoroughly; at best I just skimmed it trying to reignite my old thoughts. And if I have something better to say, I'll be back to edit.

Meanwhile...

NEXT EPISODE : THE ONE DOCTOR